Ravenheat boiler problem

[gas4you]

That was cheap My minimum for the first hour or part of is £60 + VAT

 

[mehran]

Got the expert out and he sorted in 15min. Basically he blew the just off the top of the burner/pilot. I had tried previously to do this but obviously I did not clean it enough. Bit cross really as it cost me £45 in the end - not bad for 15min ehh...

sounds like you got a good deal, a engineer that know what he i doing for cheap and did not rip you off/make something up to boost the price for the job.

remember he knew what too do, would you rather him stand there for 1 or 2 hours scratching him self then work out all he need to do was blow on the burner?

 

[Agile]

Yes you got a very good deal at that price! Far cheaper than our £84 diagnostic fee.

I do hope that he has found all the faults though. At least our fee covers ALl the faults on the boiler.

Its also slightly surprising that those varied faults were all due to one problem we are told.

One might wonder why so much dust had got into the boiler? Do you live next to a sawmill ???

Tony

 

[mehran]

i charged £45 to switch on the ch at the clock the other day after a power cut, 20mins to drive there 2 mins to switch on and make sure the rads started to heat up and 20mins back home...

wish all my jobs where as simple

 

[Agile]

I often repair two or three boilers a day over the telephone.

I go through every possibility of user malfunction and that gets rid of 35% of calls with no pressure or unset stats!

Tony

 

[mehran]

i hate giving free advice over the phone, quite frankly the people in my town are tight fisted as they are never mind giving free advice over the phone

 

[Agile]

But being helpful at no charge usually results in them recommending me and getting me to service their boiler sometime.

I also advise when the boiler may be under the guarantee like the Ecotec lady this afternoon.

Tony

 

[mehran]

well god help you if you move up here!!!

a type example of phone call i get:

them - hello, i want a free estimate for service.
me - sure...so what is wrong with boiler
them - when i use the hot water the rad get hot
me - a service will not fix that
them - i only want it serviced, if service does not work i not going to pay you
me - i can service your boiler but it is not going to fix your hot water problem, you need to repair DV
them - i not paying for anything more than a service to fix it



i am not going to condemn all hartlepool people as there is a lot of good customers and know what a good job is. but my god there are some tight folk out there.

a typical tactic here is to get you out for a "free estimate" to repair there boiler, try and get you to say what is wrong then buy the parst them self and fit it. it makes me laugh when i see them down the part center the next day

 

[Agile]

I dont think its much different in London.

A few days ago this fellow wanted me " to come round and see whats wrong and quote to fix it ( free ).

When I explained we charged for diagnosing faults he was not interested.

This morning this lady in a school wanted me to come and get the heating going as it was not working/they did not know how to turn it on.

I said I could be there within an hour and told her our fixed price charge was £84 but that was obviously much too much for her although it was her school who were paying!

Tony

 

[corgiman]

We have that all the time

We always point out that to be able to tell them what the problem is we need to work on the boiler.

to work on the boiler we need to charge

Customers who would have em eh?

 

[Slugbabydotcom]

the people in my town are tight fisted

I dont find them deliberately tight fisted I understand that most are just plain poor or need their money to buy bananas so they can bait and catch monkeys

Sticking to the topic for a moment I had a similar job on Monday. It was a CSI Primary with the same symptoms and a blocked pilot jet. I charged £50. The guy was happy to pay it.